St Mary & St Michael’s Church Show Their Support

St Mary & St Michael’s Church Show Their Support

Hi Sheila, great to meet you! Would you mind introducing yourself to the people who may not know you? (name, age, family, where you live etc?)

Hi, my name is Sheila Betts and I’m one of the churchwardens at St Mary & St Michael Trumpington. I’m married to Dave and we are both retired. We’ve lived in Trumpington since the early 1980s.

You mentioned that you are a Churchwarden at Trumpington Church. Could you tell us a little about your church and what goes on there? (number of people who attend, when your services are, and prayer meetings/ homegroups etc anything you wish to talk about)

St Mary & St Michael’s is a thriving parish church serving the whole community of Trumpington. The parish has vastly increased in size with all the new developments that comprise the ‘Cambridge Southern Fringe’. We are currently in Vacancy – however, our next Vicar the Revd Dr Mandy Maxwell, will be joining us in July.

We hold several services on Sundays: a short said communion at 8am and evensong at 6.30pm. The main Communion service takes place at 10am with Junior Church on the 2nd and 4th Sundays, an All-Age Communion on 1st Sundays and an informal interactive worship on 3rd Sundays followed by a said Communion at 11.15am – so a busy schedule!
Cornerstone runs at 3.30pm at the Clay Farm Centre and on Wednesdays we hold a Communion service at 10.30am.

We also run thriving events for families such as the weekly ‘Hands on the Circle’ Mother and baby/toddler stay-and-play-group at the Clay farm Centre and a monthly Messy Church on 2nd Thursdays – occasionally that meets at the nearby Wildlife Reserve when it is called Mossy Church.

We know that in the past you’ve very kindly cancelled your 10am service to support the runners as they pass your building, and we understand you plan to do so again this year. Could you tell us what you’ll be doing on the day and what the runners can look out for?

As in previous years our volunteers will be serving hot drinks and breakfast rolls on the hard-standing next to the church on Grantchester Road. There’s no fixed charge – we just ask for donations towards Arthur Rank Hospice. We also hope to have some live music as previously. We’ll be there from 9am till the last runner has passed. Quite a crowd gathers to support the runners and everyone gets a cheer and a clap to encourage them on their way.

We’ll be holding a Communion service at 6.30pm instead of Evensong that day.

Fantastic, what a great idea! Is there any particular highlight that you can remember from doing the same at any of the previous events?

It’s great to be able to be part of such a fantastic event, to see the determination on the runners’ faces and the fun costumes worn by some of the runners

And finally, have you/ would you ever consider running in the race yourself?

Sorry! My days of running more than a short distance are a distant memory!

That’s great. Thank you so much for your time Sheila, we look forward to seeing you in 2019!